


All of the Colors

by anignoranthistorian



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Admiring from Afar, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But whatever, F/M, Harry Potter Trivia Night, He went years without catching her name :(, I heard this poem on Anthony Bourdain, I wrote this on a whim, It's a li'l cheesy, RIP Anthony :(, it's fluffy, read it and weep, so here it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24502213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anignoranthistorian/pseuds/anignoranthistorian
Summary: A missed chance to catch a name has lead to years of pining and fond observation.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 28
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone,
> 
> Here's a little baby one shot I wrote for no good reason. Voila.

There she was again, knees pulled to her chest, hair in a plait that rested on her right shoulder, the most vivid and extraordinary red he’d ever seen. He hadn’t set foot in an English classroom in three years, but he believed she was what a poet might call “October personified.” He never knew her name, of course, only seen her briefly as the seasons changed on campus, year after year. 

In winter he’d see her pulling her friends onto the green, encouraging them to make snow angels with her. Perhaps he’d take a different route to the cafeteria to see how the tip of her nose turned pink from the cold. He’d watch her realize she’d lost her gloves, and he would catch himself taking a few steps closer, pulling off one of his own as if to offer it to her.

She’d sell red carnations each Valentine’s Day to benefit the literary magazine. He’d sometimes wonder what would happen if he paid her the two dollars for one, and then promptly handed the flower back to her.

He once saw her chase after a loose dog, following it straight into the road, cars honking as she picked it up and carried it back into her dorm building, an enormous smile on her face as she spoke to the animal. Then she was gone for at least a month more.

In the spring she’d appear, scissors in hand, reaching high up into the branches of lilac bushes. He came to understand her criteria after the second year: only the most beautiful, but only those that wouldn’t be missed by passersby. He daydreamed of walking up to her and asking if he could help her reach the topmost branches. 

He didn’t know her name, that was true even now in his final year of University, but he shared a memory with her and he remembered the feeling of that night like it was tattooed somewhere deep inside of him, longing to be recognized.

It was frosh week. There he was, desperate for friends. Desperate to learn names and exchange numbers and to have someone to grab lunch with. So there he stood, at a pub two blocks from campus, in crudely and quickly constructed black wizard’s robes, face burning in embarrassment but otherwise ready for the Harry Potter Society’s trivia quiz night. 

The society’s vice president had brought in hundreds of battery operated candles, laying them on every surface and even hanging them from the ceiling. The faces of four dozen 18 year olds glowed in their light, but none more so than  _ her’s.  _

She sat with her back against the large window, the first blustering rainstorm of autumn her back drop, red hair shimmering, freckles coming alive. She smiled at everyone, but especially the other girls at her table.

“Marilla made this for me years ago,” she told them, pulling at her Gryffindor robes to show them off. “It’s one of my most prized possessions. I’ve been skimming through the books all day. I’m so excited for this!”

Gilbert smiled to himself. He looked around the room: other girls had come dressed for a night out, were already a few drinks in, but here was this girl in full Hogwarts attire, her tie and her prefect badge perfectly secure, taking small sips of her cider. 

When was the last time he’d seen something so...sweet? So good and innocent and pure? A girl came to a Harry Potter trivia night to test her Harry Potter trivia? What a novel concept this would prove to be!

When the questions began rolling, dozens of people dropped like flies, not even able to remember who was the Ravenclaw Head of House 

“Is this amatuer hour?” She asked dramatically. “It was Flitwick!” She was towards the end of her cider now. 

Gilbert correctly remembered the Slytherin ghost (the Bloody Baron, of course), while the girl revelled in her multiple correct answers. Eventually they were down to about five competitors. The boy from Australia dropped off when he couldn’t remember whose wand Hermione used during the second half of the Deathly Hallows (“Bellatrix’s wand!” The red haired girl said under her breath). The tall girl with braids lost after incorrectly providing Umbridge’s middle name (“Jane!” She hissed). The girl in the S.P.E.W. tee shirt lost after coming up blank on the model of flying car Mr. Weasley owned (“A Ford Anglia!” She whispered).

And then there were two. Gilbert considered letting her win, knowing it would make her happy... but watching her grow flustered as he got question after question right, her face reddening after just that single cider, made him happier than he’d been in a long time.

“No!” She cried. “You can’t let him just  _ have _ it by saying the killing curse! Of  _ course _ the killing curse is Unforgivable! But does he know what the actual curse  _ is _ ?”

“That wasn’t my question,” he pointed out, trying to keep himself from laughing from the earnestness on her face. 

She turned back to the Society’s president. “Can it be  _ my _ next question?” She asked him.

He shrugged. “What’s the killing curse?”

The red haired girl reached inside her robes and pulled out a literal wand. She pointed it at Gilbert.

“ _ Avada kedavra, _ ” she said.

Gilbert put a hand to his heart and collapsed dramatically into a booth. The room erupted in laughter. Gilbert watched the red haired girl double over with laughter. He felt like his heart might leave his chest at the sight.

“I think this means you win!” He told her happily. 

“I think it does,” she agreed. “But you should know it’s only fun to win when people give it their all! If you know what the exact killing curse is, why not say it!”

He smiled as he hauled himself up from the booth. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for next time.”

She inspected his robes as he stood before her. “What house are you?” She asked simply.

“It’s boring, but I’d probably say Hufflepuff.”

“Jo says Hufflepuffs should be proud, that we should all hope to be Hufflepuffs for their sense of justice.” She was already fussing around, pulling at papers and trinkets scattered around the main tables. “But of course, Jo’s gone a little bit off the deep end lately. We probably shouldn’t always take her at her word, but I’ve always been so fond of Hufflepuffs! I’ll stick to her logic on that score. Ah! Here we go!” She found a large piece of yellow paper. “Turn around,” she instructed. 

She stood on her tiptoes to reach the hood of his homemade robes, tucking the paper in. “There. Now everyone will see you’re Hufflepuff and proud. Just be gentle. Don’t fidget too much, or it’ll fall out.”

“Lily Evans!” The Society president called out. The red haired girl turned. “Yes, you! Come get your prize!” She smiled brightly and hurried over to them, leaving Gilbert behind. 

He decided to take that moment to go check his appearance in the bathroom. He tried to smooth down his curls, to little avail, thinking that maybe, just maybe he would have the courage to offer to buy the girl a drink. To at least get her name. 

When he emerged from the bathroom, she was nowhere to be found. 

He thought about approaching her several times a year, but how could it even be done? “Remember me? From that one night? I didn’t tell you then, but I’m Gilbert. And you are?” He couldn’t do it. He never saw her with any men, which he allowed himself to hope meant she was single, even when he wasn’t. 

He’d date a girl for a month or so every now and again, but when it became clear that “it was amateur night,” as the red haired girl had once said, that the women he dated couldn’t be bothered to work themselves up or show any passion or any vulnerability, he just… couldn’t stay. He would cut ties, wish them well, and cross his fingers for the next.

On and on this went, all the while autumn would come again. And so would the girl with her hair like falling leaves.

And here she was. His friends huddled around a cart, all buying coffees while he watched her for a moment. For a couple of minutes, a book was held wide open in both her hands, then he saw as she brought one hand move to her face while she stared blankly at the page. Then she let the book fall closed, setting it on the stone bench beside her, raising the other hand so nearly her entire face was covered. 

He thought, perhaps, he was watching her cry. When her shoulders began to shake, he was certain he was.

“Gil, where are you going?” His friends called from behind him, but he couldn’t be stopped. His feet brought him to the girl. He stood in front of her, though she didn’t seem to notice, her shoulders still shaking slightly, her face hidden.

“Are you all right?” He asked her. She pulled her hands away from her face and looked up at him, squinting a bit in the sunlight.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s you. How have you been?” She wiped quickly at her face while he reached into his bag for a pack of tissues.

He was taken aback by the familiarity of her question. “I’ve been good. I’m…Gilbert, by the way. How are you? Are you all right?”

“Oh, I’m okay, Gil. I was just reading a devastating poem. Let me move my things: you can sit if you’d like.”

Gilbert could hardly believe his luck, but he tried to stay calm, to act as though this were perfectly normal. He tried to pretend that he always expected she would remember him from their encounter three years before. 

“Is it a poem I would know?” He asked her casually. 

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s for my Post Modern Poetry course. You can read it if you like.” She eagerly handed him the book. With it in his hands, she turned to the page she’d been reading, and then moved further away on the bench, as though this would be a personal experience for which he would need actual physical space. 

**Larson’s Holstein Bull**

Death waits inside us for a door to open.

Death is patient as a dead cat. 

Death is a doorknob made of flesh.

Death is that angelic farm girl

gored by the bull on her way home 

from school, crossing the pasture

for a shortcut. In the seventh grade 

she couldn’t read or write. She wasn’t a virgin.

She was “simpleminded,” we all said.

It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars.

She’s lived in my memory for sixty years.

Death steals everything except our stories.

“I had a hard childhood,” she said in explanation. “My parents died when I was a baby. Things got better when I was adopted when I was thirteen. I lived on a beautiful farm, but people in town would say horrible things about me…” He was amazed at her bravery: how could a person be so open so quickly? Perhaps he was just a coward.... He thought of all the ways he’d hid his struggles from his friends, from his own brother.

“You love lilacs,” he breathed. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it.

“I do love lilacs,” was her quiet reply. He looked up to see a sad smile on her face.

“My parents are dead, too,” he whispered. Could this be what he had never allowed himself to hope for? Someone who understands what it’s like to carry the burden of death with them?

“I’m so sorry, Gil,” she said. “Do you think it’s true? Do you think death steals everything but our stories?” He watched her shed one more tear, saw her turn her face quickly to hide it as she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve.

“I think its like the poem,” he said. “I’ll have to live another sixty years to see what lives in my memory.”

  
  
  


The girl nodded thoughtfully at this.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’d say I’m not usually like this, weeping over a poem and asking too many personal questions….but I often am,” she admitted, her nose crinkling. “My adoptive father, Matthew, he says to me: ‘Anne, it’s just the love in you and all of your colors.’”

“Anne,” he said, as though trying the word out for the first time. “Anne, you don’t know how good it is to meet you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I, uh, guess I lied. This isn't a one-shot. 
> 
> Here's Anne's perspective. 
> 
> Enjoy, everyone, and thank you for the kind comments on the original chapter <3

The pub was called The Peddler’s Daughter, and it glowed in the din of that autumnal Toronto night, hundreds of artificial candles flickering to imitate the real thing. Anne was reminded of a drowsy pulse: it was like two lovers falling asleep in each other's arms, soft and familiar and slow.

Or perhaps it wasn’t. Anne was always being told that her thoughts lacked some sort of “connective tissue.” That’s what all her teachers had told her at school. What seemed a natural progression in thought to Anne was often seen as two disjointed ideas, maybe part of the same extensive imagining, but always separated. She knew, logically, that her teachers’ criticism was meant to be constructive. But for Anne, who’d spent her childhood in the isolation of the foster care system, who was frequently openly laughed at for how she talked, how she walked, and, she suspected, how she was presumed to think, their critique felt like confirmation that she would never be able to make herself be understood. This idea had her sitting on the edge of her bed all hours of the night, counting her frantic breaths and debating whether to wake one of her adoptive parents. She knew that neither would mind sitting up with her if she was under duress, but she dreaded the prospect that she would attempt to explain and still fail to make them understand. 

All summer long, she found herself lying on her bed in her gable room, wondering if there had been some sort of mistake and Marilla or Matthew would soon holler up the stairs, letting her know she had a letter from the University of Toronto. She would tear open the envelope, and there it would be in black and white: confirmation of all of her suspicions. The letter would be brief, simply letting her know they had accidentally admitted her and she was not actually invited to attend in September.

The thought of it all made Anne ramble, a nervous habit. Uncomfortable, she began pulling on her Hogwarts robes. “Marilla made this for me years ago,” she told the girls at her table. She had only met them about an hour before at the club table for the literary magazine, but she had desperately asked them to join her for the trivia night. She knew she would feel uncomfortable showing up alone. “It’s one of my most prized possessions. I’ve been skimming through the books all day. I’m so excited for this!” 

She didn’t think they were really listening, but she smiled at them, still grateful that they had agreed to come at all. 

She caught sight of him then, his profile undoubtedly lovely in the flickering light, the shadows they cast bringing out the straight line of his nose and the strong, graceful curves of his jaw. She noticed, even from this distance, how his brows knitted together as he looked her over, and then there were his lovely, dark curls…

She could see how his warm eyes were part of the glow of the room, a boy born of summer. 

She’d never been looked at before, not like this. She felt her toes curl tightly within her shoes. She took a sip of her cider and glanced away, ultimately unable to hold his gaze. 

It would seem that the boy had found himself a seat, because when the questions began, he was no longer in sight. She fell deeper into her drink, her tolerance mercilessly low. She knew she must have made a funny sight, face red, calling out answers to questions that were not her own. She was enjoying herself, of course, but she found herself glad that the boy was not in sight: if she could not see him, surely he couldn’t see her. 

The Harry Potter Society’s secretary then encouraged the next participant to stand, the room unable to see them from their position in a corner. The boy rose to full height, announcing plainly that the Bloody Baron was the Slytherin House ghost. Anne nodded approvingly, taking the final swig of her cider. 

When there were only a half dozen contestants left, Anne was asked to come to the center of the pub. The boy who had looked at her with such intensity took his place beside her, the fabric of their robes swaying side by side. Anne even thought he’d allowed his index finger to brush against the back of her hand, but she couldn’t say for certain. 

“Name any of the three Unforgivable Curses,” said the Society’s secretary to the boy. All of the other contestants had been eliminated, and Anne scowled at the ease of his question.

“The killing curse,” said the boy. 

Anne scoffed. The boy looked at her, an eyebrow quirked. “No!” She cried. “You can’t just let him  _ have  _ it by saying the killing curse! Of  _ course  _ the killing curse is Unforgivable! But does he know what the actual curse  _ is _ ?”

“That wasn’t my question,” was his reply, his face earnest.

She turned to the Society’s board. “Can it be  _ my  _ next question?”

The president shrugged. “What’s the killing curse?”

With a wide smirk, Anne reaches into her robes and finds her pièce de résistance. She points her wand, a replica of Hermione’s which lights up at the tip when she waves it, and says the magic words.

“ _ Avada Kedavra.” _

His hand shoots to cover his heart and he falls heavily into the booth behind him. The room roars with laughter and Anne feels her face break out in a wide grin. She sees that the boy is getting back to his feet with an expression to match her own. 

She hardly knew what they said next, she was so giddy with the joy of her win and the thrill of this boy and how he  _ looked _ at her! And even better, how he didn’t look at anyone else! 

Anne’s heart soared as she placed the yellow paper in the hood of his handmade robes, unable to stop thinking about his smile and how he acted as though they’d known each other a decade. There was never a moment where he didn’t follow her line of thinking, and what a wonder that was.

She was called away then to go collect her prize. She chose a package of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, thinking that perhaps the boy would like to share, and he could tell her how he knew he was a Hufflepuff, and whether he thought Dumbledore was miscast, and where was he from and what was he studying and what was his favorite color and which poets did he like and  _ did he have a girlfriend _ ? 

Oh, and what was his name? She longed to know. 

She walked back to the center of the pub, but he was nowhere.

Anne took a moment to steady herself, hurt and embarrassment and tears clouding her vision. She left the pub and her prize behind.

Time passed, but Anne’s memory of that night never withered. She remembered how she felt under that nameless boy’s gaze and remembered how it felt to have misinterpreted the boy’s intentions. There were nice boys who would sit beside her in her Victorian Literature course, or guys who would nod to her in the lobby of her dorm building but she never once encouraged it. Sometimes, when she was very brave, she admitted to herself that she was stunted, unable to move forward. But how could she, when she was so full to brimming with memories?

There were other times where she’d march through campus, thinking about how Jane Austen may never have written a word if she had married, and how much better off Slyvia Plath would have been without Ted Hughes, and how Emma Watson describes herself as “self-partnered.”

Anne could be self-partnered. 

She took herself to see foreign horror films and told herself someday she’d learn German. She’d buy herself a burger and journal at a table by the window. She’d cut flowers for herself and leave post-its with kind words on them around her dorm. When Matthew, sweet Matthew, would send her a spontaneous text in the middle of the day: “Love You,” she would say it aloud to herself. She’d practice saying it over and over, sometimes while standing in front of a mirror. 

“I love you, you strange girl.”

She’d say it to her friends, and she’d say it to dogs she’d pet on the street, and sometimes, when she was feeling very low or very happy, she would close her eyes in the hours after midnight and pretend there were arms around her, a cheek pressed to her own, and she would hear him whisper the same: “I love you.” 

When she sees him walking around campus with one tall blonde after another, she realizes she has no way to make this fantasy happen.

But she was almost sure she’d catch him looking at her from the corner of her eye. Was there a part of him that heard her screaming in her mind?

COME

He never did. Not once. Not in three years. 

It was autumn, her last October as an undergraduate. She was a fervent fan of small joys, and so she took herself out to nature (or as close as she could get while in Toronto) and found herself a bench in a patch of golden trees. 

She opened her poetry anthology and pulled out her pencil. In the final year of her course, Anne finally felt as though she was coming to understand what was expected of her, but she also felt she was losing more and more of herself in translation. 

A third of the way through her assigned reading, Anne turned the page to a poem titled “Larson’s Holstein Bull.” 

She thought immediately of the Andrews’ terrifying bull back home on Prince Edward Island, of being dared by the boys to cut through its paddock on her walk home. She remembered walking down the road as quick as she could, hearing them speak among themselves.

“What a slut.”

“She’s a real idiot.” 

“That’s why she never goes to the board in class.”

“It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars,” the poet wrote. And in Anne’s mind, it was a small red headed girl with braids who walked into Larson’s paddock, lilacs in hand, cruel taunts drifting off behind her. It was the girl with red hair who could never make herself understood who was gored by the bull on her way home from school. 

And so Anne cried for herself, and she cried for the angelic farm girl who lived on for sixty years in the poet’s memory. 

She held her face in her hands as she wept. 

“Are you all right?” She pulled her hands away and looked up to see those eyes, years older now, but still warm and enveloping as a summer evening. 

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, but she hardly meant to. “How have you been?”

The boy looked taken aback. Anne watched as he shook his head, curls following half a moment behind, as though to clear his mind. “I’ve been good. I’m…Gilbert, by the way. How are you? Are you all right?”

“Oh, I’m okay, Gil. I was just reading a devastating poem. Let me move my things: you can sit if you’d like.” She could hardly believe her boldness in this moment. Hadn’t she spent years wishing for this, but knowing it would never come to fruition: a boy who couldn’t be bothered to wait just a few moments for her would never  _ come _ to her.

But he did, in fact, take his spot beside her. 

“Is it a poem I would know?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s for my Post Modern Poetry course. You can read it if you like.” And she’s shoving the book into his hands…  _ why  _ is she shoving the book into his hands?  _ So eager _ , she thinks to herself,  _ so strange _ .

She watches him closely as he reads the short poem, biting her lip in nervous anticipation. For a moment, she allows herself to fear that he won’t see anything in it, that it will be just another poem, that--

“I had a hard childhood,” she’s suddenly saying. “My parents died when I was a baby. Things got better when I was adopted when I was thirteen. I lived on a beautiful farm, but people in town would say horrible things about me…” She almost couldn’t bear to look at him.

“You love lilacs,” was his quiet reply. She felt the air catch in her lungs. 

“I  _ do  _ love lilacs.”

“My parents are dead, too,” he whispered. 

It only took a moment for her heart to shatter for this boy, Gilbert. She told him so, and she let it show on her face, a tear falling just for him.

“I’m so sorry, Gil,” she said. “Do you think it’s true? Do you think death steals everything but our stories?” She had no way of knowing if this Gilbert was a philosophical thinker, if he cared anything for poetry. She knew boys in the hard sciences who didn’t have a thought in their heads beyond a mathematical formula or two. But something about him told her he was above all that…

“I think it's like the poem,” he said. “I’ll have to live another sixty years to see what lives in my memory.” She nodded. She respected the idea that some things are unknowable until the  _ moment _ you know them. 

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’d say I’m not usually like this, weeping over a poem and asking too many personal questions….but I often am,” she admitted, her nose crinkling. “My adoptive father, Matthew, he says to me: ‘Anne, it’s just the love in you and all of your colors.’”

  
“Anne,” he said, as though trying the word out for the first time. “Anne, you don’t know how good it is to meet you.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no one: ...  
> my cat, Edith:...  
> my SO: ... (please for the love of all that is holy, no one show him this)  
> Hera, Greek goddess of marriage and wife of Zeus:....  
> you guys: ....  
> absolutely no one: ...  
> me: so by popular demand here's 12000 words about what happens next

“Anne, your phone won’t stop buzzing,” Matthew Cuthbert called out to his daughter. With no response, Matthew walked over to the coffee table where her phone lay face-up, charging.

For Matthew, one of the joys of parenthood had been his adoptive daughter’s openness. He’d pick her up from theater rehearsals on late autumn nights, and she would tell him everything about her day, about her friends’ days, about her  _ principal’s  _ day. He’d hear about the 81% she’d scored on her Geometry pop quiz, or the undercooked waffle fries at lunch, or how the boys were spreading rumors that she kissed and “ _ did other things _ ” with Cole McKenzie behind the art room. She’d tell him, pinky extended, that she had  _ never  _ even kissed  _ any  _ boy, no matter what he may hear.

He bent down to pick up the phone, thinking he would try to figure out how to silence it. Hand hovering over the device, it beeped again, a photo with some small, unreadable-without-his-glasses text coming up briefly.

“That’s a fat otter,” Matthew muttered to himself. But then another came through, and another. Matthew believed this was what was called a “me-me.” 

And then it was a photo, something Anne had taught him was called a “selfie.” A boy- no, Matthew corrected himself, a young man, perhaps older than Anne- flashed across the screen, an exaggerated frown on his face.

A text quickly followed.

**“ugh why are you gone when i have so many fat animals to show you”**

And then another photo of a duck on a plane. 

**“when are you coming back again?? Lol hurry, I’m so bored. I’ll even go see that weird period drama with you, just look at this lemur at Applebees”**

Matthew looked around the living room, as though answers to what it was he just saw lie in the throw blankets or the ottoman. 

“Matthew, did you call me?” Anne stood at the foot of the stairs, now changed into her pajamas. He looked at her, speechless.

Another beep from the phone and Anne was nearly diving for it. As Anne clutched it to her chest, Matthew took his seat, doing his best to pretend that nothing happened. 

“Marilla,” he called out. “We’re ready to start.” After Anne had put on the show, she didn’t glance again at the television. Eyes locked on her phone, she would sometimes snort a laugh, or a loud piece of audio would accidentally play for a moment or two, or she’d read something that would make her raise her brows and widen her eyes, pulling the phone still closer to her as though to avoid any prying eyes. 

Perhaps thirty minutes of this had passed, and Marilla could take no more. 

“Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, Tan France is outfitting this nice man and you’re not even paying attention. Antoni has already made wontons, but I’m sure you didn’t see that part either. You’ve been on that phone all week, even when we had the Lyndes round for Thanksgiving dinner. What has gotten into you?”

“What?” Anne said, glancing up from her screen. “Oh, I’m sorry, Marilla. It’s just something funny I’ve been reading.”

“All week?” Marilla demanded.

“Hmm?” Said Anne, already typing again. “Ooh, wait. I meant to show you this otter.” Anne turned her phone, holding it up for her mother’s inspection. The older woman pulled out her glasses and perched them precariously on her nose.

“That otter is enormous. That can’t be healthy for it. What does it mean, she’s ‘thicc’?” 

Anne shrugged, laying the phone flat down against her leg. “She’s just thicc.” 

“Where did you see this otter? Is she at the Toronto Zoo?”

“No, Marilla: it’s not like that. I don’t know this otter. She’s just going viral online and someone sent her photo to me.”

“Did Diana send it to you? Is that who you’ve been texting all week?” 

“No, they don’t get Canadian Thanksgiving off in the States. Diana’s in class. You don’t know this person.” 

Marilla pursed her lips, unhappy with this answer.

When the episode ended, Anne feigned a yawn and stretched dramatically. “I’m pretty tired,” she announced. “I’m going to head up to bed. Night! Love you!”

Her parents watched as she practically skipped up the stairs. 

When they heard the door to Anne’s bedroom close, Matthew cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say.

“Marilla,” he began. “Did you ever give Anne ‘the talk’?”

Marilla turned sharply to her brother. “Of course I gave her ‘the talk,’ as soon as she started her period.”

Matthew reddened. “But did you ever talk to her about  _ sex _ ?” He whispered.

“I figured she’ll come to me when she needs that information!” Marilla said defensively, crossing her arms.

Matthew gave her an incredulous look. “She’s 21 years old,” he pointed out.

“I know that.”

“And she hasn’t come to you? In all this time?” He questioned.

“Well, 21 is still pretty young, and she’s never had a boyfriend,” Marilla reminded him.

Matthew pulled out his phone, fumbling with it for a moment before speaking loudly. “Siri: what is the average age for losing your virginity in Canada?”

“Did you call me, Matthew?” Anne yelled down the stairs.

Eyes wide, brother and sister both yelled: “No!”

“ _ The average age at first sexual intercourse is 15 in Canada, _ ” was his phone’s cool response. 

Marilla’s eyes narrowed. “Well if you’re so concerned, why don’t you go have ‘the talk’ with  _ your  _ daughter, Matthew Cuthbert? Her knowledge is just as much your responsibility as it is mine.”

“I’m just saying,” said Matthew, trying to change the subject. “That… I think it might be relevant information now.”

“What?” Said Marilla, standing to full height.

“I just think that there might be a young man in Anne’s life-”

“That’s ridiculous, she would have told me.” And with that, Marilla ended the conversation, marching upstairs to her own room. As she ascended to the second floor landing, she slowed, hearing multiple voices talking and laughing. As she approached her daughter’s door, she could hear that she was responding to a man’s voice. She heard Anne giggle from the other side of the closed door.

“You have a beautiful smile, Anne,” came the man’s voice, sweet and earnest. “I love it.”

Quickly, Marilla knocked on Anne’s door before opening it. Anne frantically moved to push her laptop’s screen to the side. 

“Oh, hi Marilla,” Anne said. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Marilla tried to say casually. “Just came by to check on you and to say goodnight.”

“Oh, okay,” Anne said with a grin. “Goodnight.”

“All right, then,” said Marilla, awkwardly closing the door behind her. Marilla felt her heart pounding in her chest, unsure how to handle this new information. She had prepared herself, when she adopted her 13 year old foster daughter, that sometime in high school, Anne may stay up all night giggling over the phone with a boy, that she might sneak out after curfew to steal kisses in his car, that she might ask about birth control, but none of it came. And then Anne was headed off to University and every photo she posted online was of her and a group of girlfriends at a movie or a food festival, always back in her dorm by 11. The only time Anne hadn’t come home for Spring Break, she’d taken a long bus ride to visit Diana at her women’s college in Pennsylvania. 

And now Anne was 21. They had spent a few hours that very same day discussing her options for graduate school, where she would live, if she would work part time, how much Matthew and Marilla could reasonably help her as she entered this next stage of adult life…

A 21 year old virgin. Something about it made the entire prospect of speaking to her daughter about her sex life all the more daunting. Why on earth had she let it go on so long? 

Perhaps nothing would come of it, perhaps Anne had very traditional views on sex, maybe the boy wouldn’t want to move so very fast....

Marilla looked to the photo of her daughter which sat on her chest of drawers. Taken the summer before on a family trip to New York City, Anne smiled prettily for the camera in front of her favorite painting at the Met, El Greco’s “View of Toledo.” Long auburn hair fell over one shoulder, a white cardigan draped over pale arms, a baby blue sundress falling below her knees. Everywhere Marilla went, ladies would come up to her and say: “you have  _ such  _ a beautiful daughter!”

They were so proud of her that day. A University of Toronto woman, set to be the first in their family to earn her degree despite her troubled start. Kind and cultured, Anne belonged in these illustrious spaces. 

Marilla knew little of men. The island was a very different place when she was Anne’s age, and she never married. But even she could see that any man with half a brain would know Anne was a catch. 

Or, at least, they should. 

Marilla was awake in bed far longer than she normally would be. Finally, she came to a decision: her policy had always been to allow  _ Anne _ to come to  _ her _ , and so it would remain. 

**“You don’t need to call an uber, I can come get you from the airport if you want”**

He was up before dawn in order to send her that text. She read it as she shoved her laptop’s charger into her backpack, the sun not even rising on the Island. 

**“Are you sure?”** She texted back.  **“Getting in and out of that airport is a nightmare :/”**

**“It’s no problem, I’m happy to do it :)”**

She stared at his texts, a stupid smile on her face.

“Two minutes and then we’re leaving!” She heard Marilla call.

“All right!” She made her way downstairs. 

At the Charlottetown airport, Matthew unloaded her suitcase. “And you’re all set for the taxi?” He asked her, as he always did, when they said their goodbyes.

“Yes, I’m all set getting back,” she told him, choosing her words carefully.

He opened his wallet. “Here. Take this, just in case.” Anne could think of no excuse, and so she took the twenties. 

This was something that had worried her the entire week she’d been home. How could she explain Gilbert Blythe to her parents, to her friends, to anyone?

_ Gilbert Blythe _ . However strange it was, Anne still saw it as a remarkable privilege to even know his name. This was the third week that it hung on her tongue, though something about it all made her nervous to say it out loud.

What would anyone say? She knew what it was like when one of her friends started “talking” with a new boy, whatever that meant.

Photos would be demanded. Social media handles could not be left out. The moment the boy had to cancel plans to finish an essay, the group would encourage the put-out friend to “end him.”

“He’s cancelled,” Victoria would say. 

“You can do  _ so  _ much better,” Natalie would chime in. 

Over and over again, these girls would encourage their friends to abandon whomever they were interested in before anything could come of it. This, Anne worried about.

But more than this, she worried that she would show these girls his photos, and they would ooh and they would aah and then she would leave and they would all agree:  _ he  _ could do better. 

Not that there was anything to tell, anything to show, really. He hadn’t said anything that would indicate he wanted anything more than her friendship. She’d already written off any compliments he’d paid her, any favors he’d offered her as a mark of his intrinsic kindness. For the first time, she had a friend who matched her for wit, matched her for whimsy, and matched her for goodness. 

She wouldn’t give that up. He was too precious to risk a misstep. 

She resolved to keep as much of it to themselves as they could. 

At 10:45, her flight landed, 35 minutes earlier than anticipated. And yet there he was already at baggage claim, a travel mug in hand for her. He pulled her suitcase off the belt and pulled it behind him so she could drink her tea. 

The following months were filled with moments just like this, small kindnesses spilling out of them in multitudes. Their friends who witnessed their behavior had no word for it, they were simply “Anne and Gilbert.” 

They were Anne and Gilbert as she meal-prepped for him before an exam. They were Anne and Gilbert when he leant her $10 at Starbucks and promptly purposefully forgot about it. They were Anne and Gilbert when she taught him to snowshoe, and Anne and Gilbert when he taught her to swim. Anne and Gilbert at art galleries and Anne and Gilbert at the movies. They were Anne and Gilbert when he’d hold her in the front seat of his sister-in-law’s old coupe as she explained how she’d overheard her friends gossiping about her. And they were Anne and Gilbert on the anniversary of his father’s death as they sat in silence in a park, her hand on his. 

And there were times when they were together, and they were themselves, that Gilbert thought perhaps it had all gone too far. It was February, Valentine’s Day, and Anne had finished her shift selling carnations in the dining hall. Gilbert had bought her last and quickly handed it to her. She smiled her dreamy smile and thanked him, and it made Gilbert wonder how she would have reacted if he’d gotten up the nerve to buy her an entire bouquet as he’d been longing to the entire week. 

All winter long, she pressed into his side as they walked through Toronto, eager for his warmth. Tonight was no exception, but she did find herself wondering if it was in some way cruel to the both of them to imitate a real, true couple.

A month before, one of Gilbert’s friends had asked what it was they  _ were.  _

Anne looked to Gilbert eagerly, desperate to hear how he defined their situation.

“Call it what you want,” Gilbert said easily. She had nothing to add.

And just a week before, Gilbert had been awarded a department award accompanied by a small scholarship to be applied to his medical school tuition bill the following year. Perhaps the only humanities student in the room, Anne clapped wildly as Gilbert shook his professor’s hand. As he made his way back to his seat, he was slowed by mingling students and lecturers. A young woman of the tall, blonde, beautiful genre, the sort of girl he waltzed through campus with for years on end until he and Anne had begun spending time together, stopped him for a few moments’ discussion.

“What was that about?” She asked him in what she hoped was a casual way.

“Emily? She just wanted to see if I’d like to get dinner sometime,” he said, attempting to match her tone.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Anne said weakly.

He looked at her, brows furrowed. “Is it?”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Hmmm,” he said. “I just figured it was a little bit silly. I mean, if I wanted to go out to dinner, I’d just go with you.”

“But Gilbert,” she nearly whispered. “You’re only young once. You must want to put yourself out there, go on a few more dates before you graduate.”

He looked at her intently and Anne blushed under his gaze. “I get everything I need from you.”

“Oh.”

He must have second-guessed what he said. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “That sounds unhealthily co-dependent. I mean, I have fun with my friends. I love my brother and sister-in-law, and my niece, but for the bulk of… I hope you understand me. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding minutely. “I always do.”

So they walked back to Gilbert’s apartment on Valentine’s Day, where they had agreed to make cocktails and he had agreed to finally watch “Gosford Park.” It seemed they had always known they would spend the holiday together.

He put her flower in a small vase and added water. He heard her turn on the shower, and it wasn’t unusual: she’d had her run of the place since before the New Year. He’d even given her a key in case there was ever an emergency. 

Hair still wet and dressed in his tee shirt and his sweatpants, she came to the kitchen and began mixing their drinks.

“Um, I think you need to measure that,” he said with a laugh as she poured the gin.

“I’m not a scientist,” was her response, adding a splash more. 

She was drunk not even halfway through her third. 

She was kind even when inebriated. She fussed over him, clumsily walking to his room and coming back with a warmer pair of socks. She took her spot on the floor beside him as he made a show of changing them out. She grabbed hold of his chin and turned his face towards her’s.

“Have you been stressed lately?” She asked, her tone aiming for seriousness.

“A bit,” he said, unsure what a drunk Anne could be getting at. She climbed up onto the couch, sitting above him. He felt her hands in a fist at the top of his scalp.

“There’s an egg on your head, let the yolkdripdownlettheyolkdripdown, did you like that?”

“Sure?” There was no other response available to him.

She repeated the procedure three more times before coming to sit beside him again, her head resting on his shoulder as the movie played. 

When the film ended, Gilbert stood to use the restroom. He returned to find Anne’s sleeping form curled up on the floor of his living room. This was not what he’d intended. 

He’d  _ meant  _ to walk a slightly tipsy Anne back to her dorm, then come home alone. He always came home alone. But here she was, tired and drunk and  _ surely  _ irritating an old back injury by sleeping on the ground. 

But what would he think, if he were an outsider? His dad probably wouldn’t be proud to see his son carry his drunk friend off to bed. But Anne could sleep alone, he could simply carry her, and he could return to the couch. Surely that was acceptable to anyone who may be watching?

So he did it, he scooped her up and carried her to his bed and tucked her in. She’d woken up a bit somewhere on the journey. He felt her small fist pull faintly on his shirt. 

“You come to bed, too,” she told him.

He smiled at her, knowing his answer but unwilling to upset her. “Not tonight,” he told her. 

“But I want you to,” she told him. “I always want you to.”

“Always?” He repeated, a bit breathless. He remembered that time in December when they both waited for separate Air Canada flights, how she placed a hand on his cheek and smiled. 

“My sweet boy,” she’d said then. “You’re my best friend.” And she kissed his forehead and left for her terminal. 

“I wanted it yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that-”

“Then why aren’t you brave, Anne? Why don’t you tell me?” His voice rose. He forgot for a moment who he was talking to and the state she was in.

“Scared,” was her reply.

“You’re scared of me?” The idea of that made him want to retreat away as fast as he could, unable to face this woman and her honesty that he couldn’t understand. 

“A little bit,” she told him. “Mostly ‘fraid of everyone else.”

“You’re afraid of what people will think?” He whispered. She nodded her head. “You’re not proud of me?”

“No!” She cried, reaching clumsily for his hands. “No,” she repeated. “They’ll say you’re too good for me and you’ll believe them, ‘cause it’s true. And you’ll go. And I won’t ever come here again.”

He shook his head. “No,” he told her, taking her hands in his. “It’s not like that Anne.”

She ignored him. “So I can’t say anything,” she finished.

“You can tell me anything, there will never be any consequences. Say what you mean, Anne. Always.” 

She looked away, but patted the space on the bed beside her. “Come,” she repeated.

And that was it for him. How could he be asked to summon the willpower to walk away from her now? Not now, not ever. He climbed into his bed, fluffing her pillow for her once more, though it was rather pointless as her cheek was soon pressed to his chest, her arm wrapped around his waist. He let one arm hold her, and she leaned into his warmth in that way she had. Gilbert stared at his ceiling, waiting for her breathing to even out.

“I’m in love with you, Anne,” he whispered when he thought it to be safe. 

But Anne was still nominally awake, and she heard him say this, and a part of her brain was still functioning enough for her to think to herself that this was no surprise, not when everything he did was so obviously hopelessly entangled in his love for her. 

She let him think that she hadn’t heard, as she knew better than anyone the anxiety of someone knowing your truth before you are ready. Morning came, and Gilbert could feel the smooth skin of Anne’s legs against his own. She had kicked off the too-big sweatpants at some point in the night, and here he was, practically spooning her.

Anne had kicked off her pants in her sleep, but Gilbert’s body had betrayed him to a much greater degree. He stopped for a moment, taking in the red hair that spilled across the pillow, his tee shirt, oversized on her, bunching at her hips, the floral underwear…

Quickly and carefully he worked to disentangle himself from her, making his way to the bathroom and turning on the shower. He tried to calm himself. If sleeping with her in his bed was crossing the line,  _ surely  _ touching himself while he thought about her-- while she was  _ right there!--  _ crossed yet another. 

He closed his eyes. He loved her. He really, really did. He’d known since the first day they’d spent together in October. He knew it in his bones. He knew it to the point that he had changed all of his plans for medical school, applying only in cities Anne was applying. He’d told himself, if she’d just give him a  _ sign  _ he’d follow her wherever she went. 

But what did you call last night? Was that a sign? Would she even remember? Would it horrify her if he brought it up?

She  _ wanted  _ him in her bed! And they weren’t children: Anne would know that you might fall asleep simply cuddling but wake up back to front, parts of his body pressed to the most intimate places on hers. Adults knew that wanting another person in your bed essentially meant wanting  _ them _ .

So did she want him? He imagined for a moment walking back out to his bedroom and waking her up. He’d put the question to her simply and she’d smile that dreamy smile and he would have her, right there, just as he’d always wanted.

This line of thinking didn’t help matters, so he decided to play devil’s advocate with himself.

Anne was so indescribably innocent. He could hardly believe it, given how beautiful she was and her age-- she’d be 22 next month-- but sometimes he couldn’t help but conclude that she must be a virgin. She never talked about exes, she’d blush and look at her lap during sex scenes in movies. Perhaps she’d had a string of one night stands and hook ups? Or maybe she lost it to someone who was unkind to her? He hated that idea. 

Maybe it was possible she wasn’t thinking of the implications of pulling someone into your bed. Maybe she thought it was just the same as when he’d wrap his arm around her in the reclining chairs at the local movie theater. She never had a problem showing affection, maybe she thought sleeping in the same bed together was a simple extension of that. 

Gilbert closed his eyes. He could see himself getting strung along for years on end by this girl, waiting for her to build up whatever courage she needed to face the world and share her feelings. 

There was a time in January where they sat in her dorm, a mancala board between them, and suddenly she began telling him of her time in the foster care system. He didn’t remember every single detail she shared, as so much of his energy had been spent up trying to keep his expression neutral.

“One time I missed the bus after school, so my foster father had to come pick me up and drive me, which he  _ hated _ . Long story short, I ended up getting kicked in the back--”

“I wear contacts now, but the girls in my group home used to hide my glasses from me. I would get in so much trouble for losing them, it’s not even funny. And those girls thought it was hilarious--”

“I mean, people were really mean. Like, really, really mean. Because I can be kind of out there, you know? I mean, of course  _ you _ know. I’ve had every insult you can think of flung at me. Even ones that didn’t make any sense. But, I mean, that’s okay. Kind of. I used to say to myself ‘I love you, you strange girl.’ I think it was helpful, no one else said it until I was thirteen--”

“No one told you they loved you for thirteen years?” He asked.

“Well, no. But what could I expect? No one loved me, so why would they say it?”

He nearly spilled his guts, nearly told her everything that was on his mind and in his heart.

Instead he let her win three rounds and made her a cup of tea. 

He groaned at the memory.

“Gil?” Her voice came from the other side of the closed door. “Are you okay?”

He fixed a smile onto his face and opened the door. “I’m fine,” he told her, putting a hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go back to bed and cuddle. It’s still early.”

Like a switch flipping, Gilbert realized he could give Anne as much time as she needed, but he could also show her an abundance of affection in the meantime. 

He watched her crawl back in, felt her arms curl tightly around him without any prompting, her head tucked under his chin. He rubbed circles across her back. Every few moments she would look up to him. He wondered if she expected him to push her aside suddenly. Instead he placed a kiss on her forehead. He didn’t know how she would react.

She began squirming, trying to move out of his grasp. “Excuse me,” she said quietly. He let go, sure he’d ruined it. But she pulled herself further up the mattress and kissed each of his cheeks in turn before settling herself back in his arms. 

Neither of them said anything, and neither of them went back to sleep. But here, again, was the beginning of another change. Anne would come over after classes, and Gilbert would allow himself to change into his sweatpants and take off his shoes. In the past, he wouldn’t get too comfortable, knowing that he would be walking Anne home in just a couple of hours. But now, she stayed. 

Their conversations were sprinkled with hints of the domestic. She’d ask if he’d seen her red sweater, he’d ask if she could pick up butter on her way over. 

“Do you know what Professor Martinez told me?” She said one day over breakfast. “She said her daughter volunteers at this animal shelter and they are super short staffed. She asked me if I wanted to go help out, since she knows I really love animals.”

“Oh, you’d love that,” he said with a smile. 

“Yeah, I just don’t know how I would get there. It’s out in Stouffville.” 

“You can use the car, if you want.”

“Really? Today?”

“Sure. I just promised some friends I’d go work out with them. Maybe you can drop me off and pick me up? Would that work?”

Anne nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, thank you! This is really nice of you.” 

And he smiles and tells her: “Happy to do it, anytime.”

When classes have finished for the day, Gilbert drives with Anne in the passenger seat to the YMCA he and the friends go to together every few weeks. They all have a tendency to be a bit crass, and so he hopes, when he sees the group waiting for him on the steps, that the handoff of the car will be quick and Anne can be on her way. 

It’s not to be, though, as Anne immediately notices and asks if those are his friends. His affirmation is enough for her, as she climbs out of the passenger seat and waves enthusiastically. None of them return her gesture, but she doesn’t seem to notice, happily taking the keys and starting the car. He climbs the steps as she rolls down the window, promising to be there for him at 7. 

“So,” says Justin as they walk through the doors. “Redheads?”

“Looks like just one redhead,” Eric says with a laugh.

“I’m not going to tell you guys anything,” Gilbert mutters, his gaze fixed ahead.

“You sleeping with her?” Asks Aaron.

“No,” Gilbert tells them definitively.

“Well, why not?” The three men laugh. 

“Listen, it’s not like that with Anne and I--”

“You let her drive your damn car! Listen, you just tell us when you finally fu--”

“Do you want me to talk about your girlfriend like that? And you, Aaron, should I ask about what you do with Brooke? Just stop.”

His friends smirked. “Thought you said you weren’t sleeping with her, now you’re comparing her to Brooke? Jesus, Aaron’s been dating Brooke for three years.”

“And, for the record, I’d love to tell you what it is Brooke and I do together.”

The others laughed happily at that.

Gilbert raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “What are you guys talking about? We know Brooke. She comes with us whenever we get ramen. We went to her brother’s bar mitzvah last year. Why would I want to hear about what you do with her?”

“I don’t know, Gil. Don’t be like that. Has Annie made you a prude?”

Gilbert shakes his. “What if you guys just shut up? I’ve had a long week. If you don’t think you can, I’ll just go for a swim until Anne’s back.”

The other three shared a look. “Enjoy the pool!”

It was probably for the best. 

Just before 7, Gilbert came back to the lobby, finding his friends already assembled.

“We just want to see her one more time,” they told him defensively. He swept past them out the door. He was halfway down the steps when he heard a woman’s voice behind him.

“Gilbert!” She called. He turned to see Anne waiting for him. She sauntered down the steps to meet him. “Did you get my texts?” She asked anxiously.

“No, I went swimming. Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. You should check your phone, that will make all of this much easier to explain…”

He pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and saw 42 missed texts from Anne. The first 10 were all photos of different animals at the shelter, and then the real madness began.

Anne had had a photo shoot with a kitten. There were pictures of the kitten in its kitty condo, pictures of the kitten at its water bowl, a picture of the kitten perched on Anne’s head, and texts explaining how sweet he was, how well behaved, then a photo of him actually using the litter box accompanied by a text: “ **He’s already potty trained!!”** Then a photo of the kitten asleep in Anne’s lap, another text:  **“Gil, I can’t do it. I can’t leave him behind. What if he came to live with us?? A little friend?”** A photo of the kitten nuzzling another cat.  **“Picture this: we’re on the couch. We’re writing papers. We’re stressed. We reach down and there’s a lil teeny tiny soft ball of love. We give it a pat. Immediate relief.”** A photo of the cat eating.  **“Gil please respond, it’s almost time to goooooo”** A short video of the kitten attacking its own tail.  **“Gil since you’re not responding I’m making an executive decision.”**

“Anne,” Gilbert said slowly. “What did you do?”

She shrugged. “I made an executive decision.”

He rushed down to his car and threw open the passenger seat. In a large white cardboard box with air holes pierced through he heard a soft mewing.

He turned to her sharply. “Anne, you live in a dorm. You can’t have a cat.”

“I know, but I thought, you know, you have your own apartment, and he could stay there and I could take care of him--”

“Anne, you’re not at my apartment all the time,” he reminded her.

“I know, but I’m there a lot,” she pointed out. “And you’re so stressed, and experts say pet ownership leads to longer lives--”

“No, there’s no definitive correlation!”

“But what if you just came and said hi? This cat is a friend of mine, and I’d like to introduce you two.”

He allowed Anne to open the box. Gilbert peered down. A small white kitten with black spots opened its mouth, but no sound came out.

“Atomic Toaster, Gilbert. Gilbert, Atomic Toaster.”

“Atomic Toaster? Who named this cat?” Anne shrugged in response. “You named this cat.”

“So what if I did! He’s one of a kind, he needs a one of a kind name.”

“So are we Grimes and Elon Musk now?”

“No, because ‘Atomic Toaster’ is spelt the conventional way,” she said matter-of-factly.

“‘The conventional way,’” he repeated, disbelief etched into his voice. 

“But we’ve got to get going,” she announced. “We need to pick some things up before the pet stores close.”

Reluctantly, Gilbert agreed, because how could he send a cat named Atomic Toaster that Anne described as “a friend of hers” back to the shelter? It couldn’t be done. 

Realizing he left his keys in his locker, he turned back into the building.

“What happened?” Aaron asked. 

“Anne got us a cat.” The trio laughed. “I swear if you guys make a pussy joke, I’m never coming here again.”

“It would be too easy!” They called out to Gilbert from behind. 

Later that night as he poured cat food into a bowl and Anne got down to her hands and knees to encourage the kitten to explore, Gilbert found himself wondering if this, or something like it, could maybe, possibly, hopefully be his life from now on. Here, or anywhere, with his October girl with a smile on her face. 

Time continued its march, and April came, warm for the first time since he moved to Toronto. 

One Thursday evening, he sat beside Anne on his couch, her laptop open in front of her, her parents on speaker phone.

“No, Matthew, you’re not understanding: Diana is going to stay on with her internship in Philadelphia. If I can just  _ get into _ UPenn… we could live out the most delightful dream, roommates! But there’s no way I got in, no way…”

“Well, you won’t know until you read the email! Open it!” Came her mother’s voice. Gilbert sat silently, but squeezed her hand. Slowly Anne opened the email. Gilbert caught a flash of it before Anne had closed the tab.

“Well?” Her father’s voice this time. 

“‘We regret to inform you…’”

“Well, good riddance. They don’t deserve you.”

“No, Matthew, it’s not like that. It’s the University of Pennsylvania, they can have whoever they want, and it’s only the creme de la creme.”

“There are other universities, Anne,” her mother reminded her. “Open the other emails!”

Next was a rejection from McGill, a rejection from the University of British Columbia, an acceptance to the University of Toronto’s graduate school, and then, finally, Columbia University--

“I got in!” She screamed. “Gilbert, I got in! I got into Columbia!”

“What?” Her mother asked, but neither of them paid any attention. She was in his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck.

“I’m so proud of you!” He yelled to match her. 

“Anne? Who’s with you?”

“No one!” She said suddenly. “I gotta go now, I have to meet a professor! Love you, bye!”

She hung up the phone. “So I’m no one?” He tried to keep his tone playful, but he wasn’t sure he was managing very well.

“Of course not, I’m just not sure how to explain this to them. It’s kind of different on the island, lots of blacks and whites. And they go to church every weekend, they’re pretty traditional--”

“So you’re saying this isn’t traditional?” Again, he tried to make it seem like a joke as he gestured around the apartment, to the cat they were co-parenting, to her blouse that had been hung up to air dry, and to the door which they both knew she would eventually leave through to return to her own dorm, usually every other day or so.

Anne laughed nervously. “Not really.”

He swallowed hard once. ”It could always become traditional, you know.”

“Oh.”

“Is that the sort of conversation you want to have right now?” He asked her. 

“No,” she said. “No, not at all.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. How do you get away from someone you live with? Or almost live with? When it’s  _ your  _ home? “I’m going to take a shower, I think,” he told her. 

Suddenly morose, Anne pulled Atomic Toaster into her lap, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the fur on his chest. She worried about what he meant when he said that this could become traditional. Did he long to set clear boundaries? To push her further and further away? 

She wouldn’t overstep her welcome. She wouldn’t be a burden.

She rose quickly and began finding her things scattered across the apartment, packing them tightly into her backpack.

He found her as she was zipping it up. She looked up to see him, only covered by the towel that lay wrapped around his waist. She knew if she didn’t look away now, she wouldn’t be able to. 

“What’s going on?” He asked.

“I’m just gonna head back to my dorm. I’ve got some things to do before I leave. I’ll come pick up Atomic Toaster for the break Saturday morning.”

“I leave for Vancouver tomorrow night,” Gilbert reminded, confused by how this had progressed.

“He’ll be okay for one night by himself. I can let myself in. Have a safe flight.”

He watched her leave, unsure what to say. What had she convinced herself of in the time they were apart? He let her have the next day to herself, hoping she simply needed time to clear her head. He put down food and water for the cat. He wrote her a note reminding her how proud he was of her acceptances, and that she could call or text him anytime she felt like.

She never found it, though. She packed up the kitten and headed for the airport. The entire flight, she tried to will herself to be excited. Diana would be home, she hadn’t seen her since Christmas. She’d be back in her own bed, she’d always loved that about coming home from Toronto…

But it was different now. The nights she’d try to sleep in her dorm, she’d lie awake an extra hour or two, wondering what was the point? She knew, now, what it was like to fall asleep beside another person. She longed for Gilbert’s body beside her’s every night she didn’t have it. And she wouldn’t have it at Green Gables… she may never have it again, if Gilbert got his wish for something more “traditional.”

So there she was, lying awake in her gable room, wondering to herself… did he still love her?

Of course she’d known somehow, someway that if she wasn’t able to bring herself to say how she felt aloud, he would go. He was a young man, he couldn’t be expected to hold out forever. And she imagined there were any number of girls, Alexandras and Katherines and Madelines, who would love to bask in the glorious light of his sun. Her summer boy.

Diana came over the day after Easter. The two young women lounged in the living room, some comedy playing in the background. They had fallen into a companionable silence, Diana sensing that something was weighing on her friend. Anne’s phone began to go off, over and over again, just as it had at Thanksgiving. 

“Ha, Anne, do you finally have a boyfriend?” Diana asked her friend. That had been the joke between the two perpetually single girls as long as they could remember. Anne’s lack of a response piqued Diana’s interest. “Well, do you?”

“No,” Anne said finally.

“So you won’t mind if I take a look to see what this person is sending you? There’s no chance they’re nudes?”

Anne shrugged, turning away and burying her face into the couch cushions. 

“Anne!” Diana cried. “Who is this guy? Oh my god, Anne, what is happening here?”

Anne wondered how she found the energy even to say: “That’s Gilbert,” but somehow she willed herself to explain it all from the beginning, starting with the trivia night, onto the poem on the green, to their friendship and their apartment and their bed and their kitten. Diana listened, enraptured by the story Anne weaved. 

“And now he says it could be more ‘traditional,’ and I’m sure he’s pushing me away. Back into my dorm, and lunch on Wednesday between classes, and ‘hey, how have you been? It’s been a while.’ And I couldn’t bear that, Diana.”

Diana pursed her lips, glancing back down to Anne’s phone. “Have you read any of his texts, Anne? I am really not getting those vibes.”

“What do you mean?” Anne asked, sitting up. Diana turned the phone to show her. 

**“Hey, did you get home ok?”**

**“Are you doing all right? You seemed pretty down on Thursday. I’m thinking about you.”**

Then a video of a little girl. 

“Hey, Delly! Delly! Say ‘hi Anne!’” They could hear Gilbert’s voice coming from off-camera.

“Who’s Anne?” The little girl asked.

“My best friend ever,” he told his niece. 

“Like Lucy is my best friend?”

“Um, not exactly.” He turned the camera to face him. “Just for the record, Lucy is the pug next door, so not exactly the same thing.”

Another video of him approaching an enormous cat. “And this is my sister-in-law’s cat, Freckles. Like my friend Elijah here, they came with Mary as a package deal--”

“Is that for Anne?” Came another man’s voice from off camera.

“Yeah,” Gilbert responded.

“Get it, Gil. Show that girl Freckles. Women love cats. You should take her to a cat cafe, then you’ll really be drowning in it--”

Gilbert turned the camera to himself once more. “Alright, enough quality time with the family for one day! But, anyway, Anne, I just wanted to tell you that I miss you, and I lo… I look forward to seeing you, and I hope you’re having a nice time with my pal Atomic Toaster and with your family. See you soon.”

“He is literally stopping himself from saying he loves you! Just replace every time he says he misses you with ‘I love you’ and you’ll get down to what he actually means!”

“I know he loves me,” Anne said in a small voice. “I heard him say it once, when he didn’t think I was listening.”

Diana’s jaw dropped. She took a moment to gather herself and then whacked her friend with a heavy pillow. “What are you doing, you idiot!”

“He doesn’t really mean it!” Anne said in her defense. “Or, he won’t in like a year, when someone convinces him I’m no good--”

Diana held up a hand to stop her. “Who?” She said simply. “Who’s going to tell him this? Me? Will I drag your name through the mud? Matthew and Marilla? Those stupid girls you hangout with even though they basically bully you like you’re twelve? You’re about to graduate. They won’t be around two months from now. It would be just you and him, and he’d be left to form his own opinion of you. And it sounds like he already freaking has one! Anne! This boy is  _ nice _ ! And, listen, he’s hot, like… they don’t make Swarthmore boys like that, okay? And he’ll be a doctor? This guy is the whole package--”

“I’m not,” Anne said bluntly. “I’m plain, and I grew up in foster care, I’ve got all these weird hang ups that I’m always working though because of my childhood--”

“But he already knows all of that,” Diana said gently. “He sees you in the morning when you wake up together and he sees you when you go to bed, and he doesn’t think you’re plain. And he knows about your childhood. He knows everything and he’s made his decision. You said he’s older than you? 24? I think a grown man can decide for himself what bothers him and what doesn’t.” 

Anne considered this. “He might decide to just go,” she said.

“He might,” Diana agreed. “So might Matthew and Marilla. I could just go. But you seem to think he  _ will  _ go. Why?”

Anne shrugged, embarrassed by what she was feeling. She’d spent a lot of time with therapists rehashing her childhood, speaking to them about how certain trauma might manifest itself in her adult life. She could hear their calm voices echoing in her mind: “It might feel like it, but not everyone will abandon you. Your new parents will come back from their visit to town. Your friends will meet you to walk home. Someday, you may feel more than friendship for someone. If you build something good and healthy, that’s based in love, you don’t need to worry about them leaving either. This isn’t something you have to carry with you.”

“When I first met him,” Anne began, choosing her words carefully. “I thought we really had something. It was this small piece of magic that I never thought would happen to me, that would be part of my life. I went to go get a prize for winning the quiz and I came back and he was gone. He’d just left. He decided he didn’t want me. And you know how I am with these things. The memory of that has just kind of stuck around.”

Diana paused before speaking. “Have you talked to him about that night?” Anne shook her head. “Maybe you both need some clarity about what happened.”

“I’m stupidly afraid to ask him anything. Everything I have with him is precious to me, I’m afraid if I ask the wrong question, it’s all just going to go.”

“Well, if that happens, then it really was meant to fall apart. I think if people put in the effort to communicate, and it still isn’t working, what more can you ask of them? But you can’t keep this up, Anne. Everyone has their limit. This boy’s in love with you and you’ve got to give him some hope that he’s not wasting his time.”

She carried this idea with her back to Toronto. She did her best to listen and not react. She let Gilbert set the pace for the week, to see what it was he wanted. He’d ask her to pick up pasta for dinner, or he’d come home with a toy for their kitten. He’d speak excitedly about the formal for students in their final year.

“Do you think we’re supposed to match? Like at prom?” He asked. 

To Anne’s knowledge, they had never specifically agreed to go together. She smiled at him, a laugh playing on her lips. “I don’t think so,” she told him.

He spent the week inviting her to cuddle, his one arm around her in bed, the other holding a textbook.

It was the end of April now, and one morning Anne rose from their bed before he’d even noticed. He woke to the sound of her preparing her breakfast.

“This is early for you,” he commented.

“I’ve resolved to look pretty today,” she told him, taking a bite of her cereal.

He smiled at this, walking through the kitchen and pulling a bowl for himself. He stopped behind her and leaned over, placing a kiss into her hair.

“Pretty girl,” he whispered.

She never spent money like this. She never got her nails done, rarely even went for a haircut. But here she was, willing to hand over her debit card in the name of creating a single, perfect memory. 

She was going to talk to him tomorrow. She’d ask all the hard questions, and maybe she’d watch him walk away. But tonight she would love him and she would feel beautiful while she did it. 

She heard him come home from picking up his suit from the dry cleaners. 

“Anne?” He called out.

“I’m still getting ready in the bedroom. Can you get ready in the bathroom? I’m going to be a while.”

Though it wasn’t ideal, Gilbert would let Anne have as long as she wanted. He hoped that he could make everything go smoothly, he couldn’t even imagine what was riding on it.

Because he was going to do it. He was going to tell her he loved her. 

He knocked on the door. “Can I have my gray tie?”

She opened the door a crack and handed it to him. He dressed carefully. He did his best to part his hair. He sprayed his cologne. 

Was he a fool? Was he even good looking? He could only hope Anne thought so, and if not, he felt that Anne saw him for more than that. 

The cat clawed at the door, demanding to be let into the bathroom. He opened it for him, but instead caught sight of an absolute vision.

He didn’t know what she was. Ophelia submerged in flowers? The Lady of Shalott? She wore white tulle, with large white and pink and soft green flowers embroidered into the bodice, which pulled into a deep v, and down the full length sleeves. Her long auburn hair was down and parted in the middle. 

When she heard the door to the bathroom open, she stilled, looking at him, a smile coming over her face as she quickly approached him.

“You look more handsome than you have a right to be,” she told him, pinching his jaw between two fingers. “And a splendid chin!”

“Anne,” he said, taking her hands from his face. “You’re beautiful.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she said diplomatically. “But all eyes will be on you. Look how you shine.” She gave him that dreamy smile that he loved. 

He called an uber, sure he’d have a drink or two to ease his nerves. It thrilled him to know that before the night was over, Anne would know everything. But it also terrified him.

Had he passed the last night he ever would with her in his arms? In a platonic nothingness that he both hated and clung to?

She laid her head on his shoulder for the drive over.

An old dining hall had been transformed by way of twinkling fairy lights and garlands of greenery.

“So it is like prom,” he said, laughing softly. 

“What sort of prom did you go to? This is like A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Anne replied. 

“Then I guess that would make you the queen of the fairies,” he told her. “You are… what’s that word you like?”

“Ethereal,” they said in unison. 

“You’re full of compliments today, but you have yet to tell me if you’re actually a decent dancer of if I should expect my poor dress to be torn to shreds by the end of the night.”

He stopped himself from saying that he could do that for her, if she liked.

“I’m all right. I’m sure we’ll do fine,” he told her.

Their friends left them alone for the night. Whatever they were witnessing between Anne and Gilbert, it wasn’t something they could come up with a quick joke about. 

A DJ had been hired, and the majority of the night was filled with pop music that each student would know the words to, would jump to and sing to and have one last night of fun before they headed off for  _ real  _ adulthood. Sprinkled between these were slow songs that no one knew, and with each one Gilbert and Anne found their bodies pulling closer and closer to one another. 

There was something in the air, then, that screamed out that the night was coming to a close. The first strains of a slow love song began to play.

Familiar, finally, with the sensation, Gilbert took Anne’s hand and pulled her close as the anonymous man sang.

_ You were a phonograph, I was a kid _

_ I sat with an ear close, just listening _

_ I was there when the rain tapped its way down your face _

_ You were a miracle, I was just holding your space  _

On and on the singer went, throwing out compliments that Gilbert would never have thought of. But he did repeat one to her.

“You’re a miracle,” he told her quietly. 

Anne looked up at him, and there it was. The same look he’d had in his eyes years ago from the other side of the pub, then lit up by hundreds of artificial candles, today lit by fairy lights and the glow of phones. 

He leaned down slowly. She could hardly believe it. She  _ couldn’t  _ believe it. 

He kissed her. After all these years, it was her first. He didn’t know that.

After a moment, he pulled away. 

Anne took a step back, processing what had just happened, loosely holding on to just one of his hands.

He looked on anxiously. 

And then she was back, her lips on his. 

It felt to her like his hands were everywhere. Everywhere there was Anne, there was Gilbert. 

She pulled away one more time, but just a few inches. Just enough to see his face.

“I love you,” she told him.

He laughed with relief, like a condemned man who’d received his pardon. And he kissed her again. Then her nose and her cheeks and her forehead.

Then he told her he loved her. 

“I want to go home,” she found herself saying, as though some other, more confident being had come into her body and found the will to speak.

He nodded enthusiastically, taking her hand and tugging her along out to the street where he called another Uber.

They sat in the back of the car, hands on each other’s thighs. She wondered what happened next. 

Laughing, he lifted her up and carried her through the door of his apartment. The moment he’d closed the door and set her down, he pressed her against the wall. His lips were on hers again. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel when one of his arms would move from her body as he shrugged out of his suit jacket and undid his tie. She felt his hands sliding behind her, trying to find the zipper on the dress.

Suddenly she felt she had something very important to say. She raised her hands to Gilbert’s chest and pushed slightly. He took the hint. Breathing heavily, he looked down on her, waiting for her to say her piece. 

“I’ve never done this before,” she told him.

“What?” 

“I…” She didn’t know how to say it. “I’ve never done anything, do you understand? I’ve never done this,” she repeated. “I’m a virgin. And I know that must not be very good, and that it must a burden on you, and I’m sorry--”

He stepped away, taking a moment to process this.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean--”

“No, Anne, don’t be sorry. You’re not a burden.” One of his hands had found her cheek. “I just…”

“Please tell me,” she pleaded. “You’re worrying me.”

“I’ve just never done this with a virgin before,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I guess we just go slow?”

She nodded, though unsure. “I guess.”

He began to kiss her again, but sensing hesitancy, he pulled away once more.

“I need to ask you something,” she said. “I can’t do this, I don’t think, until I’ve asked.” He didn’t say anything, waiting for whatever she would reveal. “Why did you leave that first night? At the pub? Why did you leave without telling me?”

“I couldn’t find you--”

“I was only gone a moment, then I stood in the middle of the pub. Everyone could see me. I could see everyone. You were gone, so I left.”

Understanding came over him. “Anne, I went to the bathroom to fix my hair. I had planned to ask to buy you a drink. When I came back, I couldn’t find you. You must have left already.”

Anne closed her eyes, realizing that the wretched logic of it all was enough to make her cry. All these years, she’d thought such lowly things about herself. All these months, she waited for him to leave.

“I couldn’t understand why you had gone,” she offered as explanation. “I’ve been afraid that you’ll go.”

“Oh,” he said, realizing the moment had changed. He pulled her close to him, let her shed a few tears into his shirt. “I won’t go anywhere. Do you know that? Hmm?” He waited to feel her nod against his chest, but it never came. “Wait here,” he said. 

He walked slowly to his bedroom and pulled open his sock drawer. He might ruin everything with this, he actually probably would ruin everything. But he was certain that they couldn’t move forward until Anne believed that he wasn’t going anywhere, and he had no qualms about making that promise.

He pulled the velvet drawstring bag from the drawer and didn’t even bother putting it into his pocket.

“I have something for you,” he called. She looked at him, biting her lip. “You don’t ever have to be afraid. I’m not going anywhere,” he told her gently. “But I have just… well, a little something here that I hope will help you see how much I mean it.”

He opened the bag and let the ring fall into his hand. He felt so, completely stupid, but he got down on one knee anyway.

“Anne, this is yours. If you want it now, please take it and wear it. It was my mom’s. If you want it a month from now, feel free to go grab it. I keep in my sock drawer. You can have it whenever you want. I don’t need any more time to think about it. You’ve been all I think about for four years. I’ll go wherever you go. I love you. Don’t be afraid.”

Anne took in the scene before her. Was it insane? Absolutely. Was she drawn to it like a moth to a flame? There was no doubt.

“Do you want me to take it now?” She asked.

“Yes,” he told her, surprised at his own honesty. 

“Me, too,” she agreed. 

He couldn’t believe it. Here he was, sliding an engagement ring onto the finger of a woman he had never actually dated, and the only woman he’d ever been able to imagine marrying. 

When it was on, he stood, and they both laughed for a moment, incredulous but emphatically happy. 

And she did feel better. His mother’s ring? He wouldn’t want to leave this behind. 

With that matter resolved, it left little else to attend to. 

She laughed again, a sound which pulled from somewhere between the butterflies in her stomach and the relief in her heart.

“I really have done nothing before,” she told him. “That was my first kiss.”

He knew she was trying to make it all a joke, but he could see she was feeling vulnerable. He had to admit: he thought he’d aged out of an experience like this. He wasn’t sure how to walk someone through  _ every  _ single step. Strangely, he had a moment where he relived watching Anne walk through campus, an enormous bouquet of lilacs in hand. Perhaps, in a couple of weeks when the flowers bloomed, she’d let him help.

“I couldn’t tell,” he told her, kissing her once more for emphasis. She smiled brightly at this. They stood there another moment in silence. Then Gilbert realized: they were both waiting for something to happen.

Was he supposed to move? He was the man, he’d done this before. He’d wanted this, wanted  _ her,  _ for years. Why wasn’t he moving?

The answer hit him hard. He had never loved the person he was sleeping with. There’d been a string of girlfriends and hook ups throughout college, girls he’d met at bars. That seemed a million years ago. It almost felt like those were some other sort of experience, not in the same category, not called by the same name, as what he was about to do with Anne.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked him.

“You,” he told her. “I’m thinking about you. Like always.”

“I think we might be exactly the same. You’re clearly a hopeless romantic,” she laughed. She stepped closer to him then, her palm lying flat against his chest. Gilbert’s breath caught. “I’ve always told myself: when the time comes, I’ll have the sheer gumption to make the first move, but here we are, and I feel as though I’m rooted to the spot, like my mind is full of fog, like all I am is love for you and I have no idea where to begin in showing you how much I love you…”

He leaned down, placing a kiss on the sensitive skin below her ear. “It begins like this.” He kissed down her neck, hearing her breathing, jagged and weak. His hands found the zipper at the back of her dress once more. “I love you,” he told her quietly. She nodded. In their strange way of speaking, they both knew that this was the ascent he needed to undress her. 

She fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, every so often looking up with a playful smile, the same she wore when she splashed dish water at him or tickled him in bed.

The dress hung feebly from her shoulders. She knew the moment she shrugged it would fall to the ground, and she would stand naked in front of a man for the first time in her life. Yes, on her shoulders she carried the weight of this dress and a lifetime of insecurities. 

_ Perhaps I’m Atlas _ , Anne thought somewhere deep in the foggy moors of her muddled mind.  _ I’ll shrug and my world as I know it will shatter. _

But then there were hands on her, gently easing the dress down her body. Gilbert guided the dress over her hips, then offered a hand to help her balance as she stepped out. With a gentle smile he folded Anne’s gown and draped it over a chair. 

What was the analogy now? Atlas didn’t have kind, familiar hands to take the weight from him, to gently place it aside for another time. Anne was dumbstruck as she tried to think through the literary implications of such a gesture....

She was brought back to Earth when his hands took hold of her hips. It occurred to her then, as she stood in front of him clad in only her bra and panties, that she had only managed a few of the buttons on his shirt.

“You too,” she said breathlessly, renewing her attempt to free him of his clothing. He chuckled softly and helped her, removing his belt. Soon all that remained were his boxer briefs. 

“It doesn’t all have to happen right now,” he found himself saying. “We can go slow.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

_ Damn. _

The rest of their clothes soon found their way to the floor; the couple, their way to the bed. They revelled in what was new, and found comfort in the familiar: the touch of gentle hands on cheeks, the feeling of their sheets beneath them. They could hear the routine sounds of a Saturday night: students piling in and out of cars, crawling home, or to something vaguely like it, after a long night. They knew from experience that many of their peers would be lonely. What a thought it was to both of them: tonight was the first that they would never be lonely again.

Brave enough to speak, brave enough to come… had that really been all it took?

The next day they sat hand in hand as they told their families the news over the phone.

“Engaged? But to  _ who,  _ Anne?” Marilla asked, confused and frantic. 

“Hello,” Gilbert spoke up then. Anne admired his bravery in this moment. She knew Marilla made an imposing figure, even by voice alone. “I’m Gilbert Blythe.”

“ _ Gilbert Blythe?” _ Marilla and Matthew repeated.

“Yes,” he told them. “I’m sorry for any issue you might take with this. I know it’s less than traditional. I could understand if I’m not your favorite person right now, but I’ve always wanted to be introduced to the both of you. I’ve wanted to tell you, really, thank you for… raising Anne. If you hadn’t taught her how to, after all she’d been through, I think my long-held hope to love and be loved by her would have been so much harder.”

There was silence on the line for a moment.

It was Matthew who said it. “Seven months is hardly a long time, son.”

“Oh, it was much more than seven months, sir. You see, there was a time, four Septembers ago--”

Soon enough, it was an evening during the final week of May, and Anne and Gilbert marched across campus in their caps and gowns, the families they’d both collected along the way trailing a few feet behind. They stopped before the large lilac bush that Anne had made yearly pilgrimages to. Anne handed her fiance the clippers.

It was his sister-in-law, Mary, who directed the young couple to stand, handfuls of luscious blooms in hand, as she took their photo.

Gilbert remembered his conversation with Anne, that first day the previous autumn. And Gilbert could see, then, how the image of this spectacular young woman chasing after dogs and offering kindness and flowers would live on in his memory for sixty years. 

_ It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars. _

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> The poem is Larson's Holstein Bull by Jim Harrison! I heard it on the Montana episode of Anthony Bourdain and wrote my supplementary essay for Amherst College about it and was promptly rejected lol, but we're gonna give it another go here!


End file.
